Orchids

This being about the two orchids in our downstairs front room, plants which have been there for some years now, taking the occasional holiday away from the morning sun.

Yesterday, it struck me that that leaves were long lived and wide - and that they were getting wider relative to their length - the former being much easier to measure than the latter.

Search of the archive - psmv5 and psmv4 on the keys 'triffid' and 'orchid' - did turn up some pictures, but they were either about the orchid flowers or the aloe, the occasionally flowering plant right in the snap above. I did not come across anything very leafy.

So this morning, I take a more careful look at the plants themselves.

Both plants are in the more or less in the standard plant format. Bunch of fleshy roots below, many of them out in the air, presumably reflecting a very damp native land and parasitic habit - more accurately epiphytic, for which see reference 1. A fat central stem above, supporting a small number of alternate, fleshy leaves. There may not be a regular stem which can be distinguished from the leaves, in the way, for example, of the supposed tree of heaven noticed at reference 2, but it would take dissection to find out about that. Occasional flower stems in the axils of leaves.

The left hand plant, that left above, has six leaves, with the two largest being 11cm by 16cm and 9cm by 21cm. A sense that the newer leaves are bigger than the older leaves. No idea how old the leaves are and I do not remember losing one.

The right hand plant, above, also has six leaves, with the largest being 9cm by 17cm.

The end of the flower stem of the left hand plant is visible top left. The flowers last for quite a long time too - certainly months - but they do eventually drop off. I believe that BH cuts out old flower stems from time to time, leaving a stump of around 3cm to wither away.

Arrangements which presumably reflect absence of dangers to leaves. No need to make elaborate arrangements to cope with the loss of leaves, in the way, for example, of our deciduous trees.

Maybe time to take a look at reference 3: Thomas won't tell me about orchids, but he may tell me something relevant about the growth of leaves and about their life cycle.

PS: two survivors of the chair cull noticed at reference 4, present left and right in the snaps above. Both visible, right more so than left. Not quite the same shaped backs as those at reference 4, so they must have arrived at a different time, from a different source. Mostly Ercol though, a company which still exists at reference 5, and which looks to be still be producing chairs from the same stable as of old. A survivor - unlike, for example, the once grand and imposing ICI. Not a very woke name though, starting with the word 'imperial'. Just as well that it was mostly hidden in the initialised form.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyte.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/exchange-again.html.

Reference 3: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/chair-disposal.html.

Reference 5: https://www.ercol.com/en-gb.

Group search keys: botanicsk, 20251014.